Portraiture, Biography and Public Histories

Jordanova, Ludmilla

Abstract

Portraits and biographies play a central role in engaging non-specialists with the past, and hence invite careful scrutiny. Major enterprises, such as the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Dictionary of National Biography, in both its original and Oxford versions, provide rich examples for reflecting on public history and on the relationships between types of writing about past times. These issues relate to literature as well as to history, given the prominence of biographies of literary figures, and the role of literary scholars as authors of biographies. Using materials concerning the artist John Collier (1850–1934), the publisher George Smith (1824–1901) and the surgeon James Paget (1814–1899), this article examines the relationships between portraits and biographies and the types of insight they afford. Colin Matthew's innovation of including portraits in the Oxford Dictionary, together with his own scholarship on William Gladstone (1809–1898), including his portraits, provide the basis for suggestions about the role of work when representing lives, including those of historians. Public history can only benefit from research practices being discussed in an accessible manner, as attempted here.

Citation

Jordanova, L. (2022). Portraiture, Biography and Public Histories. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 32, 159-175. https://doi.org/10.1017/s008044012200007x

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 13, 2022
• Online Publication Date: May 19, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Deposit Date: Sep 8, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 15, 2023
• Journal: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
• Print ISSN: 0080-4401
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-0648
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 32
• Pages: 159-175
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s008044012200007x
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1191810